Bill Cunningham New York
Fashion is the armour to survive the reality of everyday life. I don’t think you could do away with it. It would be like doing away with civilization.
I hadn’t heard of Bill Cunningham until I bumped into a documentary featuring his life and work throughout New York City. I googled him right after I finished watching it only to find out that I was probably the only person who wasn’t aware of who he was. Bill Cunningham is as much a part of New York City as yellow cabs and morning bagels.
This fashion photographer, mostly known for his streetstyle photography, has been documenting the fashion scene for the last 50 years. As designer Oscar De la Renta pointed out: “More than anyone else in the city, he has the whole visual history of the last 40 or 50 years of New York. It’s the total scope of fashion in the life of New York”.
All the way through the film, we learn that Cunningham is very private about the details of his life. Wikipedia tells us he’s a Harvard dropout who turned into journalism and published his first pictures, along with one of Greta Garbo, in the Times. From them on he has continuously been taking pictures, and if you are lucky enough, you might catch him in his signature blue coat riding his bike on the streets of New York.
